


Wall of Atonement

by LotusRox



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Healing, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Regret, Reunions, i did my absolute best to not let it end in a sad note i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 19:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7187402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LotusRox/pseuds/LotusRox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He had only been following orders, and Charles did know now what kind of effect such words brought onto Erik. So he didn’t say them.</p><p>'He used your pain to control you', he had said instead, eyes bright with certainty and forgiveness."</p><p>-------------</p><p>Aftermath of the X-Men: Age of Apocalypse movie, so spoilers. Written because I can't help but think how all the absolutely-not-given-enough-focus casualties would affect someone like Erik Magnus Lehnsherr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wall of Atonement

_I see your pain, I see what has been done to you._

Words he had longed to hear, whispering inside his head like the caress of an old lover and yet so different from--

_I see why you would want to raze this wretched Earth to the ground._

This understanding. He had failed time and time again to protect his family and his people. The hatred he felt bubbling inside, the fresh wound of his loss--

_There is nothing of value left on it._

Erik agreed with a howl, and the Earth shook beneath everybody’s feet, the screams of the museum’s workers and guards and visitors joining him as Auschwitz-Birkenau was tore down from the inside out.

Not a single stone was left standing, and that was fine by him.

 

\----

 

In retrospective, he hadn’t wanted to.

His was a death toll that ran by the thousands. What did it matter, if Charles had saved him again in the face of public opinion. What did it matter, if his days were now occupied with helping rebuild the same structures and cities his powers had destroyed.

Guilt like his was too much for one body to stand.

This was supposed to be the better world they had been saved for. One where they would have the chance to just _be better, happier men_ , together. No more decades lost to ideological strife, spent in cycles of fighting and avoidance.

 _He had only been following orders_ , and Charles did know now what kind of effect such words brought onto Erik. So he didn’t say them.

“He used your pain to control you”, he had said instead, eyes bright with certainty and forgiveness.

 _‘Please stay’_ , untold.

Erik was tired of these patterns of peace and war inside his own mind. He left, and with sparse goodbyes to boot, because there was nothing of value in him left to offer. 

Maybe if there were…

 

\----

 

Charles’ mind never stops looking for his other half. Never.

And that was precisely the reason he knew how carefully their encounters are planned.

Ages ago, it would’ve held a certain amusement for him, that Erik had chosen the day after Yom Kipur for them. Now he has only the certainty of the risk it entails for Erik, allowing himself to be seen. He can feel it every time he reaches for his mind. It had always been hard for the other, to let his barriers fall. Even more now when they had a solid metal shape around the head of his old friend.

(Friend and brother and lover. Ages ago the word would’ve been the same for all three. Ages later, it would be again.)

So they find each other, then, in the blank space Erik projects for him. And out of love, he respects it. He doesn’t try to find his location, nor he does try to find out what was his next move in the eternal chess game they dance. Neither does he violate the barriers he knew Emma had taught him, so long ago, whenever Charles finds himself reaching out for him without meaning to - and finds his head uncovered.

He could if he wanted to. But these years, they have taught Charles so much about his own _privilege_ , he understands Erik now as he never could when they were still together. Even if Charles won’t stray from his cause, the same as Erik has changed methods yet not foundations.

Erik allows them to meet each year after the cleansing because he knows guilt is mutual.

And in the white rooms he creates for Charles, they can love each other like in their first days, when they had to be silent in highway motels or refrain from screaming in pleasure at Charles mansion, lest they woke up the others with the echoes of their encounter. They can be young and beautiful and a little bit less broken, once a year.

If Erik wanted to keep trying, keep working for his ideals until he felt as worthy as Charles believed him to be, that was fine by him. He was patient, too, could wait until Erik himself opened a door into his walls.

No matter how many years went by.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a smol bit of this fic that actually was written ages ago and I don't know if it's sad or in-universe consistent, that it still rings true after all these years.


End file.
